


I will Rise Again

by gremlins-came-and-got-me (Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark)



Series: If I'm Falling [8]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek is Still Broken, Kate was Evil, M/M, PTSD, Parrish is Helpful, Peter was Evil, Pre Sterek, Rape Recovery, Stiles is Helpful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 23:57:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7458643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark/pseuds/gremlins-came-and-got-me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Derek?” Parrish asks. “Derek, what happened?”<br/>Derek stops and looks down at himself. He’s splattered in blood, patches curving over his hips where his t-shirt sticks to his skin. He thinks Peter clawed him when he was...<br/>He looks up and grins, feral.<br/>“Peter happened,” he says. “And then I happened to him.” He smells like smoke, like death, like Peter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I will Rise Again

**Author's Note:**

> Read the tags, heed any warnings.
> 
> Spoilers through Season 4.
> 
> Unbetaed, all mistakes are my own.
> 
> Apologies for any medical mistakes.

~ * ~

When Derek walks into the Sheriff’s Station with his head held high, shoulders back, he wonders if any of the deputies can recognize him.

His hair is wild, slick with Peter’s blood and standing on end. His hands tremble despite the air of confidence he’s trying to project. He’s got his aviator shades on again, found in the glove compartment of the Camaro.

Oh, yeah, he’s driving Laura’s car again.

Deputy Parrish scrambles towards him while other deputies shy away. He sees someone going for the Sheriff’s office. Good.

“Derek?” Parrish asks. “Derek, what happened?”

Derek stops and looks down at himself. He’s splattered in blood, patches curving over his hips where his t-shirt sticks to his skin. He thinks Peter clawed him when he was...

He looks up and grins, feral.

“Peter happened,” he says. “And then I happened to him.” He smells like smoke, like death, _like Peter_.

He cocks a hip and leans against the reception desk. The deputy behind it, a young man with scared eyes and a soft mouth, stares back at him.

He wants the other deputy, the one who’d almost flirted back at him, but she’s dead, killed by a selfish, shortsighted teenager with anger issues. There are a lot of those running around this town.

“You killed Peter?” Parrish hisses. Derek smiles, nods. Parrish eyes him again, critically. “What did Peter do?”

“He raped me,” Derek says, simply. For as long as he practiced saying it, he deserves to not have his voice crack. The young deputy faints. Derek winces sympathetically at the sound of his head cracking against the floor. “It was self-defense.”

“Shut up,” Parrish snaps. “Just shut up. Go, talk to the Sheriff. He’ll want to help you, I know.”

“Oh, I didn’t come for help,” Derek sneers. “I came to turn myself in.” He sticks out his hands and shakes them. “I killed Peter because he raped me. I helped Kate Argent kill my family eight years ago. I killed Erica Reyes and Vernon Boyd. Come on, Deputy, arrest me—stop me from killing someone else.”

“This is not you, Derek,” Parrish says. He has a hand on his belt anyway; never mind that the deputies don’t wear their guns if they’re at their desks. “I know you.”

“Do you?” Derek counters. He lets his mouth curl into another sinister grin. “Do you really?” He leans forward so Parrish has to step back. “Did you know I’d killed Peter before?”

Parrish glances around worriedly, but Derek’d whispered. No one but Parrish heard him. “You can’t say that. Shut up and ask for a goddamn lawyer.”

“You sound like a Boy Scout when you curse,” Derek muses. “Fine. I’ll stop talking. Just. Don’t let the Sheriff talk to me alone.”

“What did the Sheriff do to you?” Parrish narrows his eyes. Derek swears he can see Parrish’s hackles rising. “Was it like Peter?”

“No.” Derek shakes his head. He thinks back to the night the Sheriff had drugged him. It’s been almost a year (ten months, actually) but he can still taste the bitter drink, still wakes up some nights terrified because he can’t feel his arms and legs. “He didn’t do _that_ to me.”

“But he did something,” Parrish insists, reaching out to grab Derek’s arm. Derek flinches, pulling back, a guttural noise escaping his throat as he moves away.

“Hale?” the Sheriff says before Parrish can react. It’s admirable the way the deputy turns and faces down his superior, keeping his body between the Sheriff and Derek. He really appreciates it right now.

“Sir,” Parrish says, “Deputy Kincaid is in need of medical assistance, if you would?”

“Ah,” the Sheriff sighs, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck, the other gesturing towards the prone man. “I think you’d be better at that, Deputy.” He fixes Parrish with a look that dares him to challenge him.

“Sir,” Parrish spits before hurrying around the counter to tend to Kincaid, who is actually awake and just lying there staring up at Derek with a fear-frozen expression.

“My office, Derek,” the Sheriff says, neutrally. Derek shakes his head. He can’t move his feet: it’s like they’ve been stuck down with stakes. If he moves, surely he’ll lose his balance, topple, and crash to the floor, immobile as he was with the Kanima’s poison. With Peter’s beetle.

“My office,” the Sheriff repeats a little more firmly, and Derek shakes his head again. He won’t go. He won’t. The Sheriff can’t make him.

“What the hell?” Stiles says from behind him, and Derek resists peeking over his shoulder at the gangly teen, and Scott from the smell of him. “Derek. Derek Hale is back in Beacon Hills?”

“Why?” Scott demands, surly. Derek shrugs. This is why he hadn’t left his loft for nearly a week after Braeden dropped him off.

“Because I am an adult and I can do what I want without consulting you,” Derek says, turning so he can take in the boys. Scott bitch-faces badly. Stiles startles next to him.

“Dude, I thought you went away to heal?”

“I am healed,” Derek declares. Scott points at him, and Derek shrugs again, conceding the lie. “I will be healed. I killed Peter again.”

“Peter escaped?” Stiles glares at his father. “Why didn’t you tell us? Didn’t you think it was important?”

The Sheriff stays silent. But, Stiles doesn’t. He huffs angrily, says, “Why didn’t you tell Derek?”

Derek blinks. “Why would he tell me?”

Stiles raises a hand, fingers folded. “One,” he says, unfolding the pointer, “Peter is your family; it’s just courtesy.” He lets another finger stick up. “Two, Peter has a history of attacking you. Although, I don’t know what he did to make you look like that. Three, you’ve killed him, so obviously points one or two was relevant.”

But,” Derek says, frustrated that he can’t make Stiles understand, “why would he tell _me_?”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Stiles says, “why did you kill Peter this time?”

“He raped me.”

Stiles makes a wounded noise in his throat and an aborted motion to touch Derek’s arm. Preemptively, he pulls away, and Stiles makes that noise again.

Scott’s face pinches into worry. “Why did he do that?” he wonders.

“He said it was his turn,” Derek reveals. Scott’s worry turns into confusion while Stiles looks sick.

“His turn?” he repeats softly. “Derek, who else had turns?”

“Kate.”

Understanding dawns on their faces.

“Mexico,” Stiles breathes, and this time when he reaches out to touch Derek, he doesn’t stop, pulling him into a tight embrace. “I am so sorry for what you’ve gone through,” he murmurs against Derek’s neck.

“Will you please just arrest me?” Derek says to Parrish, who is back to standing between the Sheriff and him now that Kincaid has been tended to sufficiently.

“For what?” Parrish asks blandly. He shoots a glance at the Sheriff before fixing his gaze on Derek. “You have the right to defend yourself from an attacker.”

“What about the others?”

Stiles pulls back (finally). “What others?”

Derek refuses to look at him. “Erica. Boyd. My family. The people Jennifer killed. Paige.”

“Okay, first of all,” Stiles says, slapping at Derek’s shoulder. He winces in apology when Derek flinches at the contact, but continues nonetheless. “First, _you_ didn’t kill Erica, Boyd, or your family. And I don’t think you killed Paige at all.” He shoots a look at his dad. “Wasn’t it an animal attack or something?”

The Sheriff nods. “Your family’s murders were orchestrated by Kate Argent. I know she hurt you, Derek. You were just as much her victim as they were.”

“And the people Jennifer killed were killed by Jennifer,” Scott pipes up. He shrugs when Stiles looks at him in surprise.

“So,” Parrish says, gently, as if he’s talking to a group of skittish animals instead of a group of impassioned (furious, guilty, sad, Derek can smell the emotions, all of them) humans. Derek snorts at the comparison, finding it to be accurate. He feels stretched thin, breakable and wounded, trying not to let them know just how much he wants to be locked up, to have his decisions wrested from him by people who don’t want to hurt him more.

“So,” Parrish repeats, clearing his throat a little, and Derek realizes he is talking to him, not the group. Skittish animal. “It sounds as if the only death you perpetrated was justifiable homicide. Although, we will need to see Peter’s body.”

“Can’t,” Derek spits through gritted teeth. Scott sniffs exaggeratedly and frowns at him. Derek looks at the floor, wonders what else Scott smells. “I burned the body.”

“What?!” Parrish’s whisper is ridiculous at this point. All the other officers, including Kincaid, have scattered due to a few harsh glares from the Sheriff, so the only ones near enough to hear are the Sheriff, Scott, and Stiles. And only one of them has the authority to arrest him.

Derek snaps his head up and fixes on a point over the righteous deputy’s shoulder. “Peter managed to drag himself out of his grave before. In fact, I’m not positive he can stay dead, so forgive me for taking measures to at least make it significantly more difficult for him to resurrect himself this time.”

“Dude,” Stiles says at the same time Scott says, “You’re lying.”

“What am I lying about, Scott?”

“You didn’t just kill Peter,” Scott says. “You tore him to pieces, I can smell his blood on your hands.”

Stiles gestures wildly at Derek, and he steps back to avoid a flailing hand. “Scott, buddy, he is _literally_ covered in Peter’s blood. How do you get dismemberment from that?”

“Peter raped me,” Derek says quietly. Skittish animal. He steps back again, so he’s in front of the doors. Parrish eyes him suspiciously while the Sheriff shakes his head sadly. “I made sure that even if he could bring himself back to life after, yes, being taken apart and burned, he couldn’t rape anyone again.” _Me_ , he means to say, but it sticks in his throat. One part of werewolf anatomy that has always been a little more sensitive to heal has always been the outright removal of limb. Peter’s finger was an anomaly—they’d gotten it back on after less than half an hour. A dick that’s been clawed off and then burned with the rest of the body? Should be considered extraneous and left to rot while the rest of the body recovers.

He steps back one more time and then turns and flees. They let him go.

He’ll work on turning himself in later. Maybe after they’ve found Peter’s body. After they’ve decided he’s telling the truth about his body count.

At least he won’t have to deal with Peter ever again. Good luck getting him to drag them to what’s left of the body.

“Wait!” someone (Stiles) calls, and Derek stops with his hand on the Camaro’s door.

“So,” Stiles says when he reaches Derek. He stands feet apart, hands buried in his pockets. He’s grinning at the sidewalk, lopsidedly smiling and smelling happy. “We graduated, like, last May.”

“I know,” Derek says. The Sheriff sent an invitation to his old number. Which he keeps just so no one else ends up with the misfortune of being dragged into the world of werewolves. He’s learned, well enough anyway, that no one really (except born ‘wolves) think of the bite as a gift.

“That means I’m eighteen,” Stiles says finally looking up. Derek stares back at him, unimpressed. “I am legally responsible for myself,” he explains.

“Yeah, I got that.” Laura had made Derek finish school in New York. He’d been nineteen when he was finally done and nowhere near as independent as Stiles or Scott. He’s not surprised, though, that Stiles is standing next to him now. This town has been unfair to him as well.

“So, since Beacon Hills isn’t right for you,” Stiles begins, and Derek growls at that.

“Who are you to decide where I should be?” he demands, and Stiles recoils. “I don’t need more people making my decisions for me.” Never mind that that’s exactly what he was looking for when he tried to get Parrish to arrest him.

“Chill out,” Stiles snaps. “Beacon Hills has never been kind to you. I’m guessing you weren’t at Peter’s apartment when he raped you, so that leaves your loft. _Do_ you have anywhere else to live?”

_The motel room Braeden was going to stay in when she visited_ , he wants to say, but he closes his mouth when Stiles keeps ranting over him, something about bone headedness and stubbornness.

He thinks of Kate and her berserkers and then just of Kate, grinding down on him in a dusty van. He must make some kind of noise because suddenly Stiles is wrapped around him, one hand splayed on his chest, fingers tapping over his heart, the other tangled in his hair, tugging gently as he says Derek’s name over and over again.

“There you are,” he says, breathily (worriedly?) when Derek blinks at him. “Where’d you go, big guy? What’d you remember?”

“Kate,” he says, wondering at the crack in his voice.

Stiles hugs him, whispers, “I’m here.”

“Mexico…the first time,” Derek says, shrugging almost helplessly. “She—” He shrugs. Points down at his feet, like that’s an answer.

“She raped you,” Stiles says softly. “She really hurt you. I could tell even then, even when you were reverted back to a teen.”

He doesn’t move, too busy trying to keep his breathing even. Stiles slides his hands down so that he’s holding Derek’s. “That’s why you can’t stay here,” he says determinedly. “Beacon Hills isn’t the place for you.”

“‘The place’?” Derek repeats. “You mean, it’s not home.” It’s disappointment. That’s what that ache behind his ribs is. He came back looking for something, and Stiles is telling him that it’s not here. Stiles is right.

“So, that’s why I was thinking, we could swing by my place, pick up a couple bags, and hit the road.”

“You want to come with me?”

Derek’s not sure why he’s asking. It’s been obvious since Stiles followed him out here that he was intent on following Derek if he left. Is he leaving? Where will he go?

He blinks at Stiles and Stiles blinks at him before grinning widely.

“Shotgun!” he yells and scrambles around the Camaro, climbing into the passenger seat and messing with the controls so he can slide it back for more leg room, which he immediately ignores and slaps his sneakered feet onto the dash.

Derek glares at him. He opens his mouth to tell him off, and then decides, _No._

Not this time. He trades his frown for a grin and cranks on the engine. “Seatbelt,” he reminds Stiles as gently as he can (which is not gently at all), and snaps his own on as an example.

“Thank you,” he says once they’ve picked up Stiles’ bags, showered (separately, thank you very much), and gotten back into the car.

Stiles looks puzzled. “For what?” he asks.

Derek doesn’t say anything, just points at the back of the Welcome sign, where someone’s tagged, _Now leaving the freakiest place on Earth._

“Oh,” Stiles says. “Well, step on it, Sourwolf! We’ve got places to go and things to do.”

Derek laughs, feeling freer already.

~ Fin ~

**Author's Note:**

> It ends there because if I didn’t stop, I’d never finish it. And, yes, this is the last section of the series.
> 
> Please don't hesitate to let me know if something bothers you or needs more tags.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
